Fredrik
Gustavsson never considered the possibility of love, or that anyone could ever
understand or accept his dark and bloody lifestyle—until he met Seraphina, a
woman as vicious and blood-thirsty as Fredrik himself. They spent two short but
unforgettable years together, full of lust and killing and the darkest kind of
love that two people can share.

And then Seraphina was gone.

It’s been six years since Fredrik’s
lover and sadistic partner in crime turned his world upside-down. Seraphina
went into hiding and has eluded him ever since. Now, he’s getting closer to
finding her, and an innocent woman named Cassia is the key to drawing Seraphina
from the shadows. But Cassia—after sustaining injuries from a fire that
Seraphina ignited—suffers from amnesia and can’t give Fredrik the information
he desperately seeks. Having no other choice, Fredrik has been keeping Cassia
locked in his basement as he not only tries to get her to recall her
past—because she and Seraphina share it—but also to protect her from Seraphina,
who clearly wants her dead.

But Cassia is a light in the darkness
that Fredrik never believed existed. After a year subjected to her kindness and
compassion, he finds himself struggling with his love for Seraphina, and his
growing feelings for Cassia—because he knows that to love one, the other must
die.

Will light win out over darkness, or
will something more powerful than either further destroy an already tortured
soul?

(Note: THE SWAN & THE JACKAL
is NOT a New Adult title.)

Exclusive Release Excerpt

Cassia pushes herself closer when I thought she
couldn’t get any closer and urges me
to look at her. Her right hand moves toward my face to console me, but I stop
it, holding it at the wrist and pushing it back down.

“The only one of us who should be talking about our
past, is you,” I tell her.

Her doe-like eyes fall under a shroud of
disappointment.

But she’s not going to give up so easily.

“You’ve asked so much of me, Fredrik,” she says with
such kindness, “but when I ask anything of you, you turn me away. I only want
to know this one thing. I don’t care
anymore about Seraphina, or the history you have with her. I don’t even care
what I have to do with it.” Her soft
hand ends up touching the side of my face anyway, and I’m not sure how she
slipped it past my barrier. “All I care about anymore is you, Fredrik.” She peers
deeply into my eyes and ensnares my gaze, her face full of heartbreak and
longing. “What are your demons trying so hard to kill?”

I push her hand away more forcibly this time.

“Do you remember anything?” I ask, disregarding her
question altogether.

“Stop,” she says with more intensity than I
expected. “You’re going to give me this.

Before you leave me alone down here
another night, you’re going to tell
me.”

The desperation in her eyes bores into me. I look
away, only to look right back at her.

“Please…,”
she says.

A lump moves down my throat and settles somewhere in
my chest. All ten of my fingers spear through the top of my dark, messy hair
and I let out a miserable sigh of defeat.

I never talk about my past to anyone. Ever. I try
not to think about it, but on some days that is as futile as trying not to
breathe. It wasn’t until I met Seraphina eight years ago that I learned to
control it, that I became a much different man from the one who hunted shit
stains like Dante Furlong, tortured and murdered them every other night, never
feeling the satisfaction that I longed to feel with every kill. I was like a
drug addict, always looking for a fix but never really satisfied enough to
stop. Never satisfied at all, because I only wanted to do it more and more.

Seraphina helped me control the perpetual urges. She
showed me how to release the darkness within me with quieter, cleaner methods
so that I didn’t leave a trail of bodies and evidence behind. But the biggest
impact that Seraphina had on my life was making me feel like I had one. Because before her, I was just
a speck of dust floating around in oblivion. I didn’t know the meaning of
happiness, or understand the thrill of pleasure or the hunger for excitement. I
was just a shell of a man who knew only darkness and death, who only felt the
emotions of anger, and hatred, and rage and vengeance.

But Seraphina, she was my dark angel, who came into
my life and showed me that there was so much more to living than I ever
understood. Ever since she left me in that field the night she set my house
ablaze, I’ve been slowly but surely succumbing to my old life again, and I need
to find her before I fall too far.

If I haven’t already.

About
the Author

Born November 25, 1975, J.A. (Jessica Ann) Redmerski
is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal
bestselling author. She lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas with her three
children and a Maltese. She is a lover of television and books that push
boundaries and is a huge fan of AMC’s The Walking Dead.